Chaos Theory
by Buffelyn
Summary: "Her face radiated love when she spoke of her husband. I wondered briefly what sort of a man he was, to have captured the heart of such a girl." A strange little vignette from the far corners of my mind.


Someone from Rick's past bonds with Evelyn. A strange little vignette from the far corners of my mind. 

Read and review, if you would...luv, Buff:)

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Chaos Theory

It's been almost six years. You'd think I'd be over it by now. Six years is a long time to take a deep breath, step back, and assess the situation. That's how I am. I like things neat and orderly and in their place. Chaos is hell for me. I don't do chaos.

Maybe that was why I fell so hard for him. If you've never met him I suppose you can't fully understand, but this man is chaos on two legs. Unpredictable, uncultivated, un...everything. And perfect, all at the same time. 

He whipped into town like a storm from the sea. Normally I wouldn't have even looked twice at him, but something about my frame of mind that day was drawn to him, I guess. He is quite handsome, no one would argue with that. I've found over the years that such a combination is never a good thing. Men like that, with a charming smile and an even more charming impulsiveness, tend to be gone on the next boat as soon as they've gotten what they wanted. 

Not him, though. There's something about him, something innately decent and good inside of him, that makes you forgive whatever else is wrong with him. I expected him to leave after a few weeks, to be gone as fast as he came in. A month passed, two, three. And I fell in love. 

I don't know if he was ever in love. But he was always there, for a time. He didn't leave, and he said he wouldn't, but we both knew that he would eventually. As the months passed, the chaos began to grate on me again, little annoyances turned into major fights, and he was gone. I heard he joined the Legion, but I never found out if it was true. Someone also told me he was dead, but I couldn't believe that. I can't picture him dead. The luckiest man alive does not just up and die. Whoever did him in would have to have supernatural powers or something. 

It was pure chance that I saw his name on the register. I never go into the office, but Don had shortchanged me on my paycheck again. Working for the railroad isn't exactly the most glamorous job in the world, or even in Cairo, but I don't exactly have any marketable skills, and it's all I can get. I guess I could move back to the States, but the idea doesn't appeal to me. I can't go back to my family with nothing, which is less than I had when I left. I couldn't face their disappointment. 

Don was on the phone, of course, so his secretary told me to sit down and wait. This must have been some kind of a joke on her part, because there were no chairs around that I could see. She smiled her saccharine secretary smile and went on typing with those long fingernails of hers, _click clack click clack_ on the keys as I stood there waiting. My eyes fell on the stack of register sheets on the corner of her desk. There, at the top of the list of passengers, was his name...

..._Rick O'Connell -- Cairo - Alexandria -- 11/21/26 12:15 p.m. - 11/24/26 2:35 p.m. -- round trip..._

I almost jumped out of my own skin with shock. To see that name, after all those years...But it wasn't an entirely bad shock, I can't deny that. I must have stood there for an eternity before the secretary's voice got through to me. I was thinking about six years ago, six years ago when chaos had ripped my life into shreds and left me forever changed. Maybe I missed that chaos, just a little. Order and stability can wear on a person after a while, too. I was bored with my life, I admit that. I'd fallen into a rut, and I needed something to break me out of it again. 

So that was why I showed up, at 2:20 in the afternoon on November 24, wearing my best dress and my heart on my sleeve. He probably wouldn't even recognize me. I'd cut my hair since then, in keeping with the style, and as much as I tried to hide it, I did look six years older. Not that being 26 years old was old, but it had been a long time since I was twenty, and it showed. I was practically an old maid, as my brother back home took every opportunity to point out to me. Why don't you settle down? he asked me. It's not right for a girl with your background to have to work...

Not that Rick was ever the most stable person in the world. I don't think he ever had a steady job in the time that I knew him. But people can change, right? Six years, after all, is a long time. 

I was early, like always. You never know with the trains, anyway. One day they might be twenty minutes early, the next day the same train might be an hour behind schedule. I sat on a bench slightly back in the shadows, next to the ticket booth. The vantage point allowed me to see the people who would be getting off the train, but still time enough to escape if the situation permitted it. You never knew with Rick, either. 

I'd been sitting there for scarcely five minutes, with nothing else to do but pick at the hem of my dress, when a young, very pregnant woman came up to the bench. She couldn't have been more than twenty-five. A bright smile lit up her face as she asked me if she could sit down. I scooted over gladly. "When are you due?" I asked her. 

"Oh, not for a couple of months," she said. Her cultured British accent didn't fit with the bedlam that was the train station. That was what amazed me about Cairo. A million different types of people, all living together in one seething mass of a city. "My husband is coming in on the next train," she continued. "I hope it's on time."

"I'm sure it will be. We've still got ten minutes to wait."

"You're waiting for someone too?"

"Uh...yes," I replied, not sure what to say. I'm waiting for a man I haven't seen in six years on the off chance he'll recognize me and sweep me off my feet again? I think not. "Just an old friend," I said. 

"Everything makes me so ill these days...cars, boats, trains...I wish I could have gone with my husband, but it would not have been a pleasant trip."

"Have you been married long?"

"Just since April. This is the first time we've been apart since we were married!"

"That must be difficult."

She smiled. "I didn't realize how difficult it would be until he actually left."

We settled into silence as the train station slowly came to life around us. _Five minutes, five minutes, five minutes_...I repeated it over and over in my head as my stomach fluttered nervously. To get my mind off of my impending doom (for I was growing rather pessimistic as the moments passed), I studied the woman beside me. She was very pretty, obviously of a good English family, though there was something striking in her features that spoke of something deep. Mostly, it was love. Her face radiated it when she spoke of her husband. I wondered briefly what sort of a man he was, to have captured the heart of such a girl. 

My thoughts did not stay in one place for long, however, for at that moment, the faint whistle of the train shattered my consciousness. I could see the train off in the distance, crawling agonizingly over the tracks toward me. I was vaguely aware of the woman beside me standing and leaving the bench. I think she might have said, "It was nice talking with you," but my mind was going in so many directions, I didn't really hear her words. 

In what seemed like an eternity, the train finally drew even with the station. Then, it was slowing down, it was stopping. I tried to get up, to run, but my feet were glued to the floor; my hands gripped the edges of the bench and wouldn't let go. People began to step off the train; one by one, loved ones scooped them up and hurried them away. I saw the woman hovering at the edge of my vision, waiting for her husband. 

And there he was. Handsome, broad-shouldered, with sun-kissed hair that fell in his face as his eyes swept the station. I sucked in a breath as they drifted over the bench for an imperceptible moment before they moved on, in search of someone else. She'd seen him already, and she was halfway to him by the time he spotted her. He drew her into a hug before kissing her, the kind of kiss where you're so lost in the other person that you forget other people are watching. He then leaned down and kissed her pregnant stomach before wrapping his arm around her. They began to walk slowly toward the station exit, never taking their eyes off each other. I could hear their laughter from where I sat. 

My hands released their hold on the bench, my legs shaking a bit as I stood. I kept to the shadows as I crept out after them, soon losing the happy couple in the crowd as we exited. They turned to the left, I turned to the right, and my life suddenly fell back in line. Just as I like it. 

A little tear squeezed out of my eye as I walked, but only one. 

Chaos was never my thing, anyway. 

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Review please (hint hint:)


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